Iranian police accused of raping protesters

Human rights groups say one victim was rushed to hospital amid brutal sexual assaults by security forces

IRANIAN security forces have raped and sexually assaulted dissidents arrested during anti-government protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, according to testimony from victims, activists and human rights groups.

One 20-year-old woman was apparently sexually assaulted so violently that she was rushed to hospital with severe injuries after her arrest, according to leaked messages between medical staff.

“When she first came in, [the officers] said she was haemorrhaging … due to repeated rape. The plainclothes men insisted that the doctor write it up as rape prior to arrest,” a medic at Imam Ali hospital wrote in a message leaked on social media.

“After the truth became obvious to all, they changed the whole script,” wrote the medic in messages first reported by CNN.

The Iranian government later said the woman was treated for “digestive problems”, which medics said was inconsistent with the signs exhibited by the woman and by her treatment.

Rights groups have reported numerous accounts of sexual violence against detained protesters as Iranian authorities crack down on a movement that is now in its 10th week following 22-yearold Amini’s death in custody.

Protests have been particularly bold in Kurdish areas of Iran, such as Saqqez, the hometown of Amini.

Security forces have intensified violence against protesters in the past week, killing 72 people, Iran Human Rights said yesterday. The Norwaybased group has counted 416 people killed by security forces nationwide.

Iran’s courts have convicted nearly 2,500 people of involvement in the protests, the judiciary spokesman said.

Some confessions relied upon by prosecutors have been extracted by interrogators threatening to rape detainees, according to the Kurdistan

Human Rights Network, a Francebased advocacy group.

Investigators have threatened to publish private pictures taken from the phones as a method of blackmailing detainees and coerce confessions, the activists said.

CNN also reported that security forces allegedly filmed sexual assaults to blackmail the detainees.

The network reportedly verified half a dozen cases of detainees being sexually assaulted, including a teenage boy who said he and his friends were raped and electrocuted in detention.